


Voices of the Dead (The Truth and the Lies Remix)

by Ruuger



Category: Angel: the Series
Genre: Dark, Episode: s05e22 Not Fade Away, Gen, Post-Series, Remix
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-23
Updated: 2011-04-23
Packaged: 2017-10-18 14:11:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/189698
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ruuger/pseuds/Ruuger
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The good guys are always stalwart and true, the bad guys are easily distinguished by their pointy horns or black hats, and we always defeat them and save the day. No one ever dies, and everybody lives happily ever after.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Voices of the Dead (The Truth and the Lies Remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [inkandchocolate](https://archiveofourown.org/users/inkandchocolate/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Whisper Lies](https://archiveofourown.org/works/88401) by [inkandchocolate](https://archiveofourown.org/users/inkandchocolate/pseuds/inkandchocolate). 



> Thanks to Lynne for the excellent beta.

**The good guys are always stalwart and true.**

"Why do you grieve?"

They're hiding in the shelter of a narrow alley, gathering strength as they wait for the next wave of demons. Angel feels the weight of his sword pulling him down, but he resists the temptation to let the weapon fall and leans to the wall. When he remains quiet, Illyria abandons her watch at the end of the alley and walks to him.

"I do not understand the purpose of this emotion."

He can hear the frustration in her voice, a suggestion of tears that her alien mind cannot understand.

"We grieve because it's human."

"But you're not human," she challenges him. _We're_ not human, he hears between her words.

He doesn't answer, and just closes his eyes and turns his face towards the sky, letting the rain wash away the blood and exhaustion. When he opens his eyes again, Illyria is still watching him, head tilted to an odd angle like a puppet with one of its strings cut.

"Before he died, Wesley asked me to take the form of the shell for him. Do you wish me to do the same for you? Do you wish me to lie to you?"

Angel licks his lips, words of denial already on his tongue, but he can't quite manage to get them out. Illyria's mouth twists into an imitation of a smile and she casually steps over the decapitated body of a polgara demon to reach him.

For the briefest moment her features blur, and when she shimmers back into focus like a kaleidoscope forming a new image, she's smiling with Fred's face.

"Hi there, handsome!" She laughs, and tosses her head, raindrops glistening in her wet hair. She puts her hand on his, and in the cold rain she feels almost real. "C'mon! Turn that frown upside down!"

He doesn't resist as the hand travels up his arm, leaving a path of dark demon blood at its wake until she's cupping his face.

"Or is this what you want?" she asks, her voice lowering - different, but familiar - and though he cannot see her face, he feels her shifting features against his skin as she presses a kiss on his cheek.

"We don't have time for your games, Illyria," he growls and shoves her away, but there is a part of him that mourns the loss of her touch, that yearns for what she's offering. Gunn is dead, Wesley is dead, and it's been hours since he's last seen Spike. There is just the two of them now, in a world that's slowly succumbing to hell.

When he finally dares to look at her, Fred is gone, and there are only Illyria's empty eyes staring at him from what still vaguely looks like his friend's face. Somewhere in the distance he can hear the roar of the approaching demon army, and he pushes away from the wall and walks past her.

"Let's go back to work."

* * *

 **The bad guys are easily distinguished by their pointy horns or black hats.**

Angel wakes up with a start when the roof of his makeshift shelter collapses, and the shower of dirtyblack water suddenly soaks him. He feels tired to the bone, but he'd already risked enough sleeping as long as he had, and so he stands up, taking support from his sword. There is a hollow feeling in his stomach, and for a few seconds black spots dance in front of his eyes. He waits for the weakness to pass and then heads towards the open streets to see if he can find something to eat.

There is no sign of Illyria, but he's not surprised by her absence. He never expected her to remain loyal even this long.

He 's barely two blocks away from his shelter when there is a sound of twisting metal from above as something heavy hits the fire escape staircase that's only barely attached to the wall. He looks up, the ashen rain irritating his eyes, to see a figure standing on the landing two stories above him. The staircase shakes again as the the man on the stairs grabs the railing and leaps down to the ground, landing in a crouch a few feet in front of him.

"What's up, man?" Gunn asks, smiling, as he straightens up.

Angel takes a step back, tightening the grip on his sword. Gunn shakes his head.

"That bad, huh? Heroing-business not going so well?"

He looks pale, but there is no sign of the fatigue in his eyes that was there the last time Angel saw him, and he has changed the tattered and bloodstained clothes he was wearing during the battle. There's a small trickle of blood in the corner of his mouth, but it's not his.

"Get the hell away from me." Angel turns his back at Gunn and walks away, ignoring his primal instincts that are screaming him to not let Gunn out of his sight. He makes only few steps when he feels the steel grip of Gunn's hand on his forearm.

"Is that any way to treat a friend? I don't think so."

He tries to twist away from Gunn's grip, and fails. "You've been killing people."

"So? I've been saving people too. But a man's got a eat, you know." His face twists in rage, but not yet enough to reveal the demon. "You don't wanna start comparing tallies with me, Angel. How many people do you think got killed because of this plan of yours?"

"We made a choice."

"No, we didn't. You did."

"You all volunteered," Angel says, but there's no real conviction in his voice.

"You were starting an apocalypse. It wouldn't have made a damn difference no matter what I did. At least this way I went down fighting."

Gunn pulls Angel closer, his eyes reflecting sulphur in the dim light.

"Do you wanna know what they did to me?" His voice changes, words hissing through bloodied fangs. "Besides the obvious."

Angel stumbles when Gunn suddenly lets go of his arm, his feet caught in the debris littering the alley. He looks down, the weakness suddenly returning when he sees what almost tripped him. A body of a small child, nothing left of it except a charred skeleton in a black patch of asphalt left behind by a dragon's flame.

Gunn smiles, his features melting back to a human. "You wanna tell me again who's the real monster here?" He leaps on top of a nearby dumpster and effortlessly pulls himself up to the fire escape.

"I'll be seeing you around, Angel," he says, and then disappears into the darkness, leaving Angel standing alone again.

* * *

 **And we always defeat them and save the day.**

He finds himself in front of what was once the headquarters of Wolfram & Hart, a bare skeleton of the once so tall building standing in the middle of a mountain of dust and rubble.

He smells her before he hears her voice, the ghost of some expensive perfume announcing her arrival.

"Returning to the scene of the crime, I see."

"The same could be said of you, Lilah," he says, taking a seat on the broken arch of a giant R. "What are you doing here?"

"Business. As usual."

"I thought they'd given your job to someone younger and prettier." A movement catches his eye, and when he looks up, he can see Eve shimmer into view from behind a tower of broken glass and design furniture. "Speak of the devil..."

"They did," Lilah says, and there's only the slightest hint of bitterness in her voice. "I'm just here to show the ropes now that the situation has... changed."

He'd known it the moment he saw her, but he still feels a slight pang of guilt when Eve reaches the broken pieces of the W and the H, and walks right through them. It's nothing but a teardrop in an ocean, but it's still there.

"I told you to leave, Eve," Angel growls, closing his eyes in the effort to silence his soul.

"And where would I have gone? I was supposed to leave with Lindsey. With him gone, what else did I have to do?"

When he opens his eyes again, she's standing right in front of him, and he thinks of ghosts haunting the burial sites of their loved ones, of poltergeists sowing destruction at their wake.

"You didn't have to kill him," she says, almost petulantly, like a child who's had a favourite toy taken away from her.

"He would have turned against me sooner or later, and so would you. I didn't have a choice."

Eve snorts. "You just keep telling that to yourself."

"Go to hell."

Lilah laughs, the sound echoing in the ruins.

"This is hell, Angel. And you are the chief damned soul."

* * *

 **No one ever dies.**

He finds himself both happy and disappointed that his penthouse has survived the destruction. Part of him feels guilty for it, but there is so very little that doesn't already make him feel guilty that in the end it's just little more white noise. He leans back on the impossibly soft surface of his bed, fingers idly tracing the mark of Black Thorn branded on his chest.

"Hello, Angel."

There is a sharp stabbing pain in his heart, and he gives into the exhaustion and closes his eyes.

"Wesley. I guess you're the liaison Lilah was talking about."

He thinks he feels the bed tip beside him, but he knows he's only imagining it even though when he opens his eyes, Wesley is sitting on the mattress next to him.

"Unfortunately, yes. It would seem that the contract we made with Wolfram and Hart was rather more binding than I had hoped."

"I'm sorry."

"Yes. I imagine you are."

"Did I do the right thing?"

"You did what you thought was right."

He can't see Wesley's face, but he can read the lie in the set of his shoulders.

"It's not the same thing."

"No, it isn't."

Wesley twists his body around until he's leaning above Angel's reclining form. His hand hovers above his shoulder, and Angel yearns to grab it, to pull Wesley to him and never let go, but the urge passes, and as Wesley sets his hand down again, it briefly passes through Angel's arm.

"We all made our choices," he says, and there is something in his eyes that's almost like peace.

They remain like this for a few more seconds, and then Wesley stands again, straightening his suit as he avoids Angel's eyes. "The Senior Partners have instructed me to make sure that you rest until your wounds are healed. There is food and water to be found in the other room, as well as bandages and other medicinal items, and I have placed wards around the building that should protect you until you have recovered."

"Wesley..." Angel sits up, thinking of all the words that he should have said, things he should have done long ago, but can't find the strength to voice them.

"I really am sorry," he finally says.

Wesley smiles, just a the slightest curve on the tight line of his lips.

"I will come back tomorrow to see how you're doing. Goodbye, Angel."

* * *

 **And everybody lives happily ever after.**

He finds Illyria on the roof of a half-collapsed office building. She is standing on the edge, her back ramrod straight as she guards the city below her. Her head whips around as he approaches her, the movement unnaturally graceful.

"What is it that you want?"

He can hear the screams and roars and moans of the city around them, and the dark rain burns his eyes as he faces the wind. He takes a step closer until he's standing right in front of her, their bodies only inches away from each other. She doesn't flinch when he takes her hand and presses it to his heart.

"Lie to me."


End file.
